The GARBAGE500 is a toboggan building workshop and race. It challenges participants to create sustainably designed toboggans using only waste materials that will be driven down a snowy hill. In addition to simply racing to determine who is the fastest, participants will also be judged on their performative ability, ingenuity, style and other criteria which challenge racers to think about their project from a variety of angles.

During the workshop component of the GARBAGE500 participants will have to think about how the available materials, physics, and aesthetics will come together in the functionality of the final product. In each participant’s design, the toboggan will act as a bridge between the landscape and body. Participants are also challenged to explore how a toboggan can also be another form of art production such as performance, sound-art, sculpture, wearable or printmaking machine.

Through the competitive event of the GARBAGE500, participants will race their toboggans down a slope, hoping that their assembly skills endure the breakneck speeds that they will encounter. The competitors will be judged by a panel to determine which racer is the fastest, who has the best panache, whose design is the most durable as well as whose is the most dangerous.

The GARBAGE500 uses multidisciplinary approach to the construction of functional art objects as they relate to both the body and the environment.